The Italian Renaissance
Lecture: The Italian Renaissance
Seminar and Essay Questions
- Why was there a revival of antiquity in the Italian states between 1250 and 1500?
- 'The importance of Florence in the development of the Italian Renaissance has been exaggerated'. Discuss.
- Did women experience the Renaissance in the same way as men?
- Was the Renaissance limited to elite culture only?
Documents
- Oration On the Dignity Of Man.
- Leonardo da Vinci writes to offer his services to Ludovico 'il Moro' of Milan, c.1483
- '' (pp.74-80) (optional: 'Letter to Lucilia Vernacula, Against women who disparage learned women', pp.81-83) (in Diana Robin (ed. trans), (University of Chicago Press, 1997)
E-Resources
Giorgio Vasari's Lives of the Artists:
. In Our Time. BBC Radio programme (26 December 2013)
Introductory Reading
Barber, The Two Cities, (no readings)
Bartlett, The Making of Europe, (no readings)
Waley, , 153-166, 192-200
Further Reading
Black, Robert (ed.), Renaissance Thought: A Reader (London, 2001) [A collection of key articles and essays]
Brown, Alison, The Renaissance, 2nd ed. (Harlow, 1999)
Burckhardt, Jacob, The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy, with an introduction by Peter Burke (Harmondsworth, 1990) [Online edition ]
Cassirer, Ernst et al. (eds. and trans.), The Renaissance Philosophy of Man (Chicago, 1948) [An important collection of essays]
Davies, Jonathan, Florence and its University during the Early Renaissance (Leiden, 1998)
Findlen, Paula (ed.), The Italian Renaissance: The Essential Readings (Oxford, 2002) [A collection of key articles and essays]
Galluzzi, Paolo, (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2020).
Goldthwaite, Richard A., Wealth and the Demand for Art in Italy 1300-1600 (Baltimore and London, 1993)
Hale, J.R., The Civilisation of Europe in the Renaissance (London, 1994)
Hankins, James, , Renaissance Quarterly 44 (1991), 429-75.
Kristeller, P.O., Renaissance Thought, 2 vols. (New York, 1965) [A collection of key articles and essays]
Martin, John Jeffries (ed.), The Renaissance: Italy and Abroad (London, 2003) [A collection of key articles and essays]
Porter, R., and Teich, M. (eds.), The Renaissance in National Context (Cambridge, 1992)
Vasari, Giorgio, Lives of the Painters, Sculptors, and Architects, trans. Gaston de Vere, with an introduction by David Ekserdjian, 2 vols. (London, 1996) [Online translation ]
Welch, Evelyn, Art and Society in Italy 1350-1500 (Oxford, 1997)
